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“You need to be checked out,” he repeats.

I’m too tired to argue, so I just close my eyes and enjoy the way I can feel his heart beating against me.

The door opens again, the deep rumble of my uncle’s voice filling the room as he tells Marcos something about a doctor.

It’s hard to pay attention, my brain sluggish and eyes too heavy to open.

I must doze off a bit, because the next thing I’m aware of is Marcos guiding me down to the bed. He’s murmuring in Spanish as he lies next to me, tucking the blankets around us until we’re wrapped up like a burrito. I roll over, wanting to face him, and burrow against him.

“It’s okay for me to sleep now?” I ask.

“Yeah. It’s almost seven,” Marcos tells me, switching back to English to answer me. “We’ve been home nearly ten hours.”

I can’t bring myself to get too worked up about this, although the answer shocks me. It feels like Marcos and I have only been snuggled up for an hour or two, not ten.

“Love you,” I mumble, and slip back into sleep.

I wake up warm—face tucked underneath Marcos’ chin and body plastered to his. We’ve never slept this closely before, and my first instinct upon waking is to move away and give him space. Marcos doesn’t like snuggling, and he certainly isn’t going to like the way I’m sweating on him.

“Nate,” he whispers, voice rough and scratchy.

“Sorry,” I say automatically, but his hand smooths down my back the way I might do to a spooked horse.

“You okay?”

“I need to pee, actually,” I admit, and carefully peel myself away from him when he loosens his arms.

I move slowly, rolling over and sitting up, trying to take stock of my body. My chest aches with a constant, throbbing burn that tells me of bruised—possibly broken—ribs. When I rise to standing, pain stabs down the back of my right leg and I wince.

In the bathroom, I close the door and examine myself in the mirror, flinching at the sight of the bruise already coming in black on my ribs. That explains the look on Marcos’ face as he watched me walk to the bathroom, I suppose.

I have to keep one hand on the wall as I pee, pain flaring so violently in my pelvis that I’m surprised there isn’t any blood in my urine. I hate breaking ribs. There’s nothing to do but let them heal, and it’s some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.

Marcos is gone when I return to the room, shivering again even though I was hot barely ten minutes prior.

Sliding back beneath the sheets, I carefully sit myself back against the headboard, trying to keep my movement to a minimum.

If only I didn’t need to breathe, I think, as my chest aches fiercely.

Someone taps on the door and cracks it open.

“Hey, Uncle Jes,” I greet him, smiling and tugging the blanket up over my chest. I’m starting to shake again.

“Hey, kid, how you doing?” He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over a worn plaid shirt, distressed with age.

Even from across the room I can catch the smell of leather, as though he just came in from treating saddles in the barn.

It’s the way he’s always smelled, ever since I was a little kid following him around during chores.

Thinking of it now makes me feel like I’m in danger of crying, so I clear my throat and try for another smile.

“Good. Sorry about all the trouble.”

“Trouble,” he repeats, snorting and shaking his head. “You’ve given us plenty of trouble through the years, that’s true enough. This isn’t one of those times. Just glad you’re okay, that’s all.”

“You called in the cavalry, huh?”

When I’d been riding double with Dean Paulson’s hand, he’d told me every rancher with land near us had riders out looking. I feel a little ridiculous, putting not just my family, but the entire county through that. I was fine.

Jes fixes me with a stern look that is also reminiscent of my childhood. “Of course we did. You know how quickly things go to shit out here. And that storm.”

I nod. That fucking storm. Memories of last night surface—huddled underneath the shelter of the trees, clothes sopping wet and freezing, twigs snapping as the nocturnal animals went looking for food. I shiver. If I’m never cold again, it’ll be too-fucking-soon.

“You did good staying put, though. We knew right where to look for you, come morning. ”

I laugh. “Remember when I got lost as a kid? You told me to hug a tree and you’d find me. I always remembered that. It’s easy to get turned around and get yourself more lost—especially in the dark.”

“Exactly. Glad to see you were listening all those times I was talking.”

He smiles at me, before glancing over his shoulder and stepping away so he’s no longer blocking the doorway.

Marcos walks into view a second later, arms full of clothes.

I’m feeling a million times better than I was this morning when we got back, confusion and exhaustion gone. Now I can see what I missed before.

Marcos looks almost ill, with a pasty, white pallor to his face. His eyes are puffy and red, tight at the corners as though he’s in pain. No matter how badly I felt last night, nothing hurts quite like knowing I’m the reason he looks so sad.

“I went over to the loft and grabbed some fresh sweats for you,” he says, laying the bundle gently on the end of the bed. I look at the neatly folded pair of boxers sitting on top, and feel like I might cry again.

“I’ll leave you boys to it,” Uncle Jes cuts in gruffly, scrubbing his palms on his jeans. “Going to take Annabelle for a walk to stretch that leg.”

“I took care of Tuna while I was over there,” Marcos says, which earns him a proud look from my uncle. He loves it when people work hard, and don’t complain. Marcos is probably his idea of a dream son.

Alone again, I clench my fingers into the blanket to keep myself from reaching for Marcos. He’s changed into a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants, which is probably a non-verbal signal that he’s done with skin-to-skin contact today.

“I’m really sorry,” I tell him again. “I would have just walked back down the trail, but in the dark it’s easy to get turned around and?—”

“Nate, God, I don’t need you to be sorry. I’m just glad you’re okay. You could have…broken your neck, or shattered your leg or something. Jesus,” he mumbles, scrubbing a palm roughly over his face. “There are, like, a hundred fucking ways you could have died last night.”

And judging by the look on his face, and the despondent slump of his shoulders, he spent all night thinking up every single one of those scenarios. I want to apologize again. I want to tell him that things like this don’t happen all the time. I don’t want him to be scared of living here.

“Do you want to take a shower? Or a bath?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting his hand on my leg.

“Yeah, actually, that sounds good. I’m cold again, which is stupid as hell. There are at least six blankets on top of me.” I gesture to the veritable mound of fabric thrown across the bed. Marcos smiles weakly.

“I brought more in while you were sleeping,” he admits. “Your uncle called some local doctor he’s friends with, and was told you aren’t allowed a hot bath right away with a hypothermia risk, but now that we’ve got you safely warmed up, you can.”

“Local doctor,” I repeat, chuckling as I slide my legs out of bed. “He called the pediatrician.”

Marcos gives me a look. “Two hours to the nearest hospital is insane, Nate.”

Standing, I lean down and kiss the top of his head. I’ll go ahead and keep to myself that two hours is a generous time frame, as that would mean there was nobody else on the road.

“I’ll shower,” I tell him, grabbing the clothes he brought me. Yawning, I glance out the window at the evening sky. Has it really been a full day?

“Was your phone with you?” Marcos asks suddenly, and I glance over at him.

“Yeah, in the pocket of my jeans.” He grimaces, probably thinking of the way he’d chucked them into the bed of Jes’ truck as he’d stripped me in the driveway. “It’s broken, though. Completely shattered.”

My shoulders slump as I think about all the pictures I had on there that are probably gone now.

Pictures of Marcos bowling and feeding Tuna and riding Friday.

Pictures he’d sent me last summer when we’d been texting back and forth every day.

Pictures of Marcos playing baseball, crouched down with legs spread and fingers splayed in a signal to his pitcher.

“I hope Max and Luke kept all those pictures I sent them of you,” I say sadly. “I need to replace all of mine now.”

Marcos gives me a strange look, and nudges me toward the bathroom. “You don’t need pictures, I’m right here.”

He follows me into the bathroom and I watch in amusement as he fiddles with the shower, trying to find a suitable temperature. He frowns as he does it, as though finding the perfect happy medium between scalding and warm is serious work.

“Okay,” he says finally. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Thank you.”

He nods, bending his neck and kissing my shoulder as he passes, closing the bathroom door gently behind him. I leave the water temperature the way he set it, and just stand under the stream with my eyes closed for a few minutes.

The cold had been so extreme that I hardly cared about the rest of me.

Now, the pain in the rest of my body is slowly flaring to life.

Everything from my neck to my toes hurts, and I have a low, throbbing headache.

It’s not a surprise—I wasn’t lying to Marcos when I told him this isn’t my first time being thrown.

It doesn’t matter if bones are broken or not, falling always hurts.

Carefully, I clean yesterday’s and last night’s grime off as best I can. Dirty water swirls down the drain and I scrunch up my nose. God, poor Marcos. Not only was I sitting in bed this filthy, but I was pressed against him. I doubt he was comfortable.

“You really must love me,” I comment on my way back into the bedroom. Marcos looks up from his phone.

“What?”

Crawling into bed beside him, I sit close enough for my thigh to press against his. He reaches over to tuck the blankets around our legs.

“I didn’t realize I was so dirty,” I explain. “And you’ve been snuggling my nasty-ass for the last twelve hours.”

“You could have been covered in sewage, and even then someone would have needed a crowbar to pry me away from you,” he responds dryly.

“No crowbar needed. I mate for life—you’re stuck with me.”

He smiles and leans his shoulder against mine. Sobering, he looks at me, expression serious as his eyes carve a delicate path across my face.

“How are your ribs? Does your leg still hurt?”

My hip is currently throbbing, and every small breath sends a sharp pain shooting down my side. Turning my head to look at him like this required a lot more effort than it should have. I smile.

“Both still hurt, but it’s manageable,” I tell him, bending the truth just a bit.

I don’t think I can stand that worried, pinched expression on his face anymore.

This was supposed to be a fun vacation—a happy place.

Now, when he thinks back to this summer, all he’ll remember is the hell I put him through last night.